The Queen's first state visit to Ireland was never going to be a gentle, low-key affair. The sort of events laid on for her arrival in Dublin were ones she has carried out thousands of times before: arrival at an air force base, guard of honour and lunch at the presidential residence, a wreath laying and a library tour to view a hallowed national treasure: in this case the Book of Kells.

But there have never been circumstances like this, never with such resonances of history, never laden with circumstances of such suspicion and mutual misunderstanding and incomprehension. That is why a state visit has taken nearly 90 years to come about since Irish independence, and why some republicans were still saying that the Queen's tour was premature.

The resonances were everywhere. From her arrival at Casement airfield, the Irish air force headquarters named after Roger Casement, the former Anglo-Irish colonial civil servant hanged by the British for treason in 1916, to her tour of Trinity College, once a bastion of the Anglo-Protestant ascendancy, the age-old connections hung heavy. Even the royal standard pennant fluttering from her Range Rover still bears a heraldic Irish harp in one corner.

The Queen was welcomed by Mary McAleese, the Ulster-born Irish president, to Áras An Uachtaráin, the presidential mansion in Phoenix Park, aware that it was once the British vice-regal lodge. She was driven down O'Connell Street, past the general post office building, which still bears the pockmarks of bullet holes from the 1916 Easter Rebellion, the most potent symbol of a challenge to British rule.

Most resonant of all, she laid a wreath at the Garden of Remembrance, commemorating generations of Irish men and women who died fighting for independence from her ancestors.

As she stood in pensive silence, in the distance, republican demonstrators released dozens of black balloons. They did so downwind, so they floated off, almost out of sight and unremarked, as if irrelevant to the day's events – as were the minor scuffles of small groups of protestors, kept well away from the royal route by the garda.

The wreath-laying was an extraordinary ceremony – though it lasted barely 15 minutes – and clearly hugely important to the Irish government.

The Queen has probably conducted similar gestures towards colonial freedom fighters and has certainly had to meet many former enemies of British rule, but her moment of silence seemed louder than the muffled shouts of the demonstrators.

Republicans have been uncertain how to respond to the visit. In a sense, the Queen, or Elizabeth Windsor as some choose to call her, is the last symbol of an old ascendancy that has gone forever. If they cannot stir emotions to keep an 85-year-old woman and her 89-year-old husband out, what cause can still rally the troops?

That did not stop Morrissey, the Manchester-born singer, claiming that the Queen represented fascism in full flow or, implausibly, that the royal family prevented freedom of speech.

Nor did it stop James Connolly-Heron, the great-grandson of a hero of the Easter Rising, claiming the visit was inappropriate and insensitive. "Given that the Queen of England still occupies part of this island, is it not strange that she is honouring those who fought and died?" he said.

No room for redemption or reconciliation there.

Republicans such as Gerry Adams and Sinn Féin councillors have largely been reduced to claiming that the Queen is welcome, but her visit is untimely – only to be challenged by politicians and viewers on TV chat shows: if not now, when?

When Sinn Féiners claim defensively to be against all royalty, their opponents ask why they did not oppose the last royal visit – by Prince Albert of Monaco. Their grievances sound hollow and dated and their indignation partial.

Not that the Garda Síochána were taking any chances yesterday. They had flooded the streets of central Dublin with 6,000 officers, closed roads, supervised the erection of 25 miles of crowd barriers, and imposed parking restrictions across a wide area.

Had there been as many policemen standing outside the general post office in 1916 as there were yesterday morning, the rising would never have got off the ground.

Security staff stood at the doorways of banks – a necessary precaution given the level of public anger about them these days – to search the bags of customers, and police marksmen were silhouetted against the sky on the roofs of the city's Georgian terraces.

So heavy were police numbers that the crack addicts usually found along the quays on the banks of the Liffey these days had disappeared and the roads were clear of traffic, except for the ubiquitous taxis, whose numbers have increased sixfold since the financial crisis bit three years ago, from 4,000 to 25,000 as the unemployed seek ways of making money.

The security meant that the Queen met very few Irish people and despite all the hype and debate and publicity – one tabloid ran the banner headline The Regal has Landed – the crowds were thin, maybe put off by the restrictions.

Enthusiasm about the visit is a minority interest, though larger than the outright opposition. Polite interest and indifference are much more common, very similar to the United States, another country which threw off the colonial yoke by force: a similar mixture of wryness and curiosity. They are intrigued but not obsessed, unlike the broadcaster RTE, which provided exhaustive coverage all day.

Politicians on both sides have been talking of steps forward and new relationships. David Cameron, who flies in on Wednesday night for the state banquet, spoke this week of "the start of something big", and McAleese has talked of forging a new future: "An extraordinary moment in Irish history, a phenomenal sign and signal of the success of the peace process and absolutely the right moment for us to welcome the Queen on to Irish soil … the people with whom we are forging a new future, very very different from the past, on very different terms."

Judging by their reaction to the visit, the Irish people do not need to be told that: six million Britons, after all, have Irish relatives or ancestors. They might have guessed that Her Majesty would wear green for her arrival – no great insight required to place that bet with the bookies, who had been offering odds on the colour.

No chance for them, though, to speak to the Queen – no mere crowd member would get within 40 feet, police warned. Instead, some questions submitted by children will be projected on a large scale outside the back of Dublin's convention centre; inside the centre, the Queen is due to attend a concert organised by the British embassy on Thursday night. "What colour is your bicycle?" says one question. "What's your favourite princess dress?" says another. And one asks: "Are there skeletons in the dungeon?"

• This article was amended on 18-19 May 2011. In the original, children's questions were said to include: "Do you have a pink hairbrush?" And: "Do you kill people?" These were incorrect and have been deleted; two correct quotations have been added. The original article also suggested that children's questions were being projected on screens at the actual concert event organised by the British embassy. This has been corrected. A published correction will also appear soon in the newspaper.